


Sleeping Beauty

by dandylionsummer



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Nightwing (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Birdflash - Freeform, Drugging, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Manipulation, Hallucinations, Loss of loved one, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Past and Present alternating POVs, Poor Dick, Poor Jason - Freeform, Scarecrow's Fear Toxin (DCU), whump for all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:54:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23185096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandylionsummer/pseuds/dandylionsummer
Summary: Wally and Dick had been an item. Following Wally’s death/disappearance into the speedforce, life went on. Jason came back into the batfamily’s life and eventually, he and Dick got together.During a run-in with the Scarecrow, Nightwing gets hit with a new psychotropic toxin that doesn’t induce fear, but rather grants the recipient their innermost desire.Psychological mindfuck and angst.Current Dick/Jay, past Dick/Wally.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd, Dick Grayson/Wally West
Comments: 6
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

Jason’s hands scrambled on his belt, searching for the right compartment that held the antidote to Scarecrow’s fear toxin, his eyes trained on Dick’s body, which lay in a heap below him on the ground.

He cursed as he counted the seconds following Crane’s hasty retreat, knowing when he got to ten that there was no chance of catching him again that night.

The whole run-in had been unusual. Unexpected, even. And that’s probably how Nightwing ended up on the receiving end of a huge cloud of Scarecrow’s gas. But there was something other than his lover’s limp body that was unnerving Jason about this particular encounter. He just couldn’t put his finger on it…

_Dick felt butterflies in his stomach. This felt too good to be true. Why was that again….?_

_Ha, he had always felt like Wally was too good to be true. The most amazing boyfriend he could ever dream of. Best friend and partner all wrapped up into one beautiful, freckled man._

_Green eyes lit warmly on him, a smile opening easily to flash white teeth. “Hey babe,” came that familiar voice, the sound of comfort and laughter and years of friendship, which made Dick’s chest feel like it was erupting with love every time he heard it issue an endearment, no matter how casual._

_“C’mere, Rob,” he grinned, eyes crinkling at the edges, his canines peeking out from beyond those beautiful, full pink lips as the grin widened. He pulled Dick in for a hug._

Jason’s trepidation was increasing. This was an extremely unusual reaction. Dick had yet to jolt, to wake, to indicate any signs of fear. Jason understood that occasionally Scarecrow’s toxin, if dosed heavily enough, initiated as a sedative, but he had never seen it take this long to work its horrible magic. By now, Dick should have been fighting, screaming, shaking with fear, _something._

“Come on, babe,” he whispered as he double-checked Dick’s pulse, two gloved fingers pressing into the skin just above the black neckline of Nightwing’s suit. Jason had just administered the antidote, but he felt anxious now. If Dick hadn’t been symptomatic, would the antidote even work? He waited, trying to quell the fear that was collecting in his own stomach as he absently rubbed Dick’s shoulder, willing him to wake up and be okay.

_Oh god, this had always been his favorite place to be, even before he and Wally had gotten together. Safe in the strong arms of his best friend. Warm, radiating a heat that felt like sunshine, the smell of mountain fresh laundry detergent bringing a smile to his face._

_“What’s wrong, babe?” Wally asked, and Dick felt his chest tighten a little at the concern._

_What_ was _wrong? He loved Wally. This was exactly where he wanted to be._

_“Dick?” Wally asked, his voice a little more forceful in its worry._

_Nothing should be wrong. How could it be when he was with Wally, the life-long love of his life, his soulmate?_

_“Dickiebird, come **on**!” And that…was kind of weird. Wally had never called him Dickiebird… That was…_

_Dick turned back in towards Wally’s shoulder, seeking that familiar and comforting warmth, the mountainy-fresh smell…_

_Where was it?_

_Where had it gone??_

_“_ **_DICK!_ ** _”_

Jason watched with relief as Dick’s eyes snapped open. He had removed the older man’s mask after the antidote had been administered with no results, and the worry that had been building in his stomach crested when his increasing efforts to wake his lover had gone unanswered.

“Dick,” he sighed, letting his body sag a bit in his relief, but he was quickly sitting up again, rigid as a pole when he registered the wave of emotions passing over Dick’s visage.

Confusion, terror, anguish. They had all explicitly crossed the older vigilante’s face, one right after the other.

He had quickly taken in his surroundings, eyes darting from the ceiling to the warehouse walls surrounding them, to Jason’s face.

Then he had closed his eyes. And the trembling had begun.

“Hey,” Jason said, his voice barely a whisper as his mind raced to think of what could possibly have shaken the other so badly.

As terrible as fear toxin is, they had all experienced it time and time again, and were now more or less immune to the after effects of what they were able to realize had been nothing more than fear fantasies. No more post-antidote traumas…

His arms reached for Dick, wanting to still his lover’s quaking body, but he found himself being shoved away as soon as he’d made contact.

A wretched sounding sob echoed off the walls, and Dick rolled onto his side, wrapping his arms around himself.


	2. Chapter 2

The ride back to the cave had been uncomfortable, to say the least.

Dick wished that he had been feeling less flirty and rebellious earlier that evening. If he had, he’d have had his own bike to ride and wouldn’t have been faced with the awkwardness of having to grip tightly onto Jason while the only thing he wanted in the aftermath of all that had happened was to be the fuck alone.

Following his revival from the gas, he had finally managed to pull himself together (after scaring Jason three-quarters of the way back to death with his wrecked sobbing). He’d had to bodily shove the younger man’s well-meaning hands off to get his point across that he was _fine_ and did _not_ want to talk about it. And he knew it wasn’t like him, but he couldn’t quite be bothered to feel guilty about how hurt and confused Jason had looked just then.

Almost. But not quite.

The roar of the motorcycle was deafening as they entered the largest chamber of the cave, the sound echoing off every surface. But despite the racket, the arrival of the returning pair hardly received any attention from the cave’s other occupants, winged, terrestrial, or otherwise.

It wasn’t until Dick had stepped off the bike, the engine barely killed, making long, sure strides across the cave and leaving Jason to linger next to the cooling machine utterly at a loss, that Damian had looked up from his work.

His eyes quickly flicked from Dick’s glower to Jason’s pathetic shuffling before snorting in a characteristic mixture of disgust and sarcastic amusement. “Trouble in paradise?”

The comment, made just as Dick was nearing on his journey across the cave floor, gave the older man no pause in his progress. But the look that he threw at Damian– part indignance, part annoyance, and part _dismissal–_ had the boy’s breath catching in his throat. His eyes widened immensely as they followed Dick’s retreating form, disbelieving, before he whipped around to stare helplessly at Todd. The poor kid’s face was panic-stricken, unaware of exactly his crime. Jason could sympathize.

Dick halted briefly as he passed the alcoved laboratory where Tim sat, the teen’s cowl drawn back behind his shoulders, peering into a microscope. He looked up, surprise washing over his expression as he watched Dick tear his mask off roughly and fling it down to the table beside Tim’s test samples, his brother’s expression dark and brooding and absolutely unexpected.

“Scarecrow’s got a new toxin. Off-MO. Mild sedative. Pyschotropic, but not fear-inducing. You should be able to get plenty of residue from that,” Dick stated with clipped words. He didn’t make eye contact. Before he was even done speaking, he was heading away, towards the showers.

Bruce’s attention had been claimed the second the abnormal tone had left Dick’s mouth. The words and their meanings had come next, but he understood immediately, looking between Dick’s tensed shoulders and Jason’s disparate, cowed form that something of significance had occurred.

“Nightwing, report!” Bruce barked at Dick’s back, rising from his chair at the computer as Dick walked towards the locker room. The younger vigilante did not turn or acknowledge the command.

Dick stripped his costume as quickly as possible, grabbing a hazmat bag and stuffing it in.

He wasted no time in stepping under the spray of almost-scalding water, and once there, stood there motionless, eyes closed, as the droplets brought the blood upwards towards the skin, tinging everything a burning pink. He let his mind wander, cautious of the territory but powerless to avoid it completely…

 _Wally_.

Wally had been… had been _real_.

Well, obviously not real, but as good as real. Alive. In the flesh. Warm. Radiant.

Dick’s chest hurt as he thought about what he had seen… felt, heard.

The experience had been more than memory. It was also more than the constructs of the mind’s desire during a dream. Even for the most lucid of dreaming…

Real. _Alive._

Dick chased and tried not to chase what he had seen in the not-dream. He tried to hold on to the memory of it– the feeling of Wally underneath his fingertips, warm and whole and _there._ He replayed the audio as best as he could, willing the bright essence of Wally’s voice, its tone and timbre and resonating love, to reverberate in his skull, to drown out his real-time senses.

He knew he should be wary. It _had_ all been the product of a toxic assault by Scarecrow, after all, but Dick just couldn’t release the unrealistic feeling of _hope_ from his heart. That it might have been real.

Dick raised his head from where it had dropped, forehead pressed against the cold tiles before him, and pawed the faucet off with an unseeing hand.

He set about to drying off and dressing in a decidedly unhurried fashion, both due to the fact that he knew when he exited the showers he would be expected to report in painful detail the events of the night’s patrol, as well as in deference to his common sense, which told him to accept the fantasy for what it had been.

He _knew_ that it hadn’t been real. He knew it.

And Dick had long-been experienced in accepting the realities of the world for what they were, even if they were in direct contrast to what he desired most or even what he perceived.

So, why then, was it so difficult to accept?


End file.
